


Just a Trim

by PoemJunkie



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Eddie would be too, Gen, I'm obsessed with Oliver Stark's curls, M/M, Pre-Slash, kind of, no beta we die like men, quarentine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoemJunkie/pseuds/PoemJunkie
Summary: Buck needs a haircut during shutdown, and Eddie has experience cutting Christopher's curly hair. It would be a perfect solution if Eddie wasn't kind of obsessed with the discovery of Buck's own curly locks.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 741





	Just a Trim

**Author's Note:**

> Look, this is based off the picture Oliver Stark posted of his new haircut, and I have nothing else to say about it, except that I seem incapable of writing these boys in an actual relationship right now, I just have to keep writing them as dumbasses in love with each other and not making a move.

Buck has been Eddie’s best friend for two years, and he’s not sure how it’s escaped his notice until now.

Buck has curls.

Buck preferred a short, neat style that includes the use of a lot of gel and a comb over, and Eddie’s never seen his hair more than a few inches long. So, he’s never seen the wisps of curls on top of his head.

He’s not sure what about it fascinated him so much.

But.

Curls.

Buck caught him looking out of the corner of his eye and grinned sheepishly. “I know, it’s getting out of control.” He waved a hand towards his head. “Quarantine sucks. I’d let Maddie cut it, but…” He grimaced, and he and Eddie both swung their eyes to where Chimney was doing the dishes. Chimney turned to glare at them. 

“Are you disparaging my haircut?” he asked, sternly. 

Eddie wasn’t sure haircut was the right word, exactly, for what Maddie had done to Chimney’s head. More like...hair removal. 

Chimney turned and put his hands on his hips. “Do I need to tell _Maddie_ you’re disparaging my haircut?” he asked, a bit more pointedly. 

Eddie and Buck hastily averted their eyes. 

“Looks great, Chim,” Eddie added for good measure.

“Don’t _lie_ to the man, Eddie,” Buck said, sotto voice.

“Excuse you, what exactly is wrong with the buzz cut look?” Hen asked, running her hand over her own shorn locks. She hasn’t had any issues keeping up with her hair maintenance. “I make this look good.”

Eddie and Buck swiftly made noises of agreement, but Eddie couldn’t help but sneak another look at Chimney, because...he did not make it look good.

“Alright, alright, enough about me. Let’s get back to Curly Sue, here,” Chimney said, snapping a dish towel in Buck’s direction.

“Who?” Buck asked.

“Too obscure? How about Shirley Temple?” Chimney tried.

Buck still looked blank. 

“How do you not know Shirley Temple? Did you and Maddie emerge fully grown from test tubes? It makes it very hard to roast you. Not to mention, you’re making me feel ancient.”

“Well…”

“Watch it, Buckaroo.”

Buck held his hands up in surrender, before he turned to Eddie. “I notice you’re pretty under control, there, Eddie. Do you do it yourself?”

“Pepa does mine, and I do Chris,” Eddie said.

Buck’s eyes lit up. “Ah, so you know how to control the curl.” He flicked one his errant curls, which had started to fall over his forehead. “Do you think you could do me?”

Hen snorted her coffee through her nose at that, and had to take a moment to get her cackling under control. Chimney patted her back and looked long-suffering. Eddie’s ears got hot.

“What?” Buck asked.

Hen recovered enough to say, “Nothing, Buck. I’m sure Eddie would love to do you. Right, Eddie?”

“Guys, what’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Eddie said, firmly, glaring at Hen and Chimney, daring them to disagree. “Of course I can give you a haircut, Buck.”

Though it’s a shame. 

Those curls.

+++

Eddie brought his good scissors and clippers to Buck’s apartment, leaving Christopher with his abuela. It made him feel paranoid, because surely if Buck was going to pass on the virus, he would have done it through Eddie long ago, but he also can’t help but be cautious with Christopher, whose lungs are strained due to his condition anyway.

Eddie himself has been religious about washing himself and changing into a fresh pair of clothes before going home at the end of each shift, always wearing a mask, and even then, he’s discussed the possibility of having Christopher stay with Pepa or his abuela until things settle down. In the end, he wasn’t able to go through with it, knowing just how much one can miss in a few months, with only a Skype screen to connect you. In overcompensation, Christopher’s social circle has essentially shrunk to Eddie and Carla in person. 

Buck understands this, although he and Christopher have been keeping in touch with Skype calls, where Christopher rattles on about school (online learning has been a nightmare for all involved except his sunny boy) and his hamster, and the service project he’s been doing with abuela to make masks for the 118 to give out on their calls.

Buck has taken this in stride, though he’s confessed to Eddie it’s not the same as being able to give Christopher a hug in person. 

But for now, this was the safest thing for Christopher, and Eddie knows that Buck would do far more than forgo an in-person hug to keep Christopher safe.

And Buck seemed excited. He and Eddie don’t get to hang out in person much anymore outside of work, and Buck led Eddie into his apartment after their shift bouncing like a puppy.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

“Right before I cut your hair? Brave.” But he accepted the bottle all the same. It was a nice bit of normalcy, having a beer with Buck in his apartment. It had been awhile. 

“Nobody’s ever cut my hair at home, before,” Buck said. “Kind of exciting.”

Eddie laughed. “Not that exciting, I promise. And never? Not your mom?”

Buck dragged a stool from his kitchen to the center of the floor and made his way to the bathroom, snagging a towel from under the sink to act as a cape. “Nah. Not really her thing. She had a standing appointment at a salon every six weeks, so I’d usually get a haircut at the same time. I would have let Maddie try, but, well...you saw. Plus, she was off to college while I was still pretty young.”

Buck never seemed resentful of his parents, but Maddie occasionally let slip that they weren’t very involved with their kids, so Eddie didn’t press. He took the towel from Buck and shook it out. 

“Well, it’s not that hard. I’ve been doing Christopher’s since I got back from Afghanistan. Not that he’s a hard kid to please. So I hope you’re not expecting a masterpiece or anything.”

“Nah, just get it under control. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Buck settled in on the stool. “I’m ready, maestro.” 

Eddie laughed and whipped the towel around Buck’s front, and opened the little haircut kit he used on Christopher. He filled the miniature spray bottle at the sink, and started to work on wetting Buck’s hair, darkening it from its usual sandy blond to a darker shade.

He went to work quickly and with the efficiency of a dad used to having a wiggling kid on the chair, neatly parting Buck’s hair into sections, and clipping the mop of curls on top out of the way.

The sides and back, he made quick work of, cleaning them up and shortening the length. Putting off the top, he used the clippers to clean up the back of Buck’s neck and sideburns. But then, there was nothing else to do, but go for the top.

Eddie hesitated.

Those curls.

He usually felt this kind of pang when he had to trim back Christopher’s curls. There was just something so sweet about them. 

“Eddie?”

Eddie shook himself. This was not Christopher. This was his grown best friend, who carefully styled the curl out of his hair every day anyway. There was no reason to be nostalgic about cutting Buck’s curls. 

Buck turned on his stool to look at Eddie. “Did you mess up? Am I bald back there? Oh, God, this is why people don’t get their hair cut at home, isn’t it?”

Eddie placed his hand on Buck’s damp curls, turning him back around. “You’re not bald. I’m just being ridiculous.”

“About what?”

Eddie licked his lips. In for a penny. 

“Are you sure you don’t just want a trim? Seems a shame not to keep the curls.”

Buck snorted. “They make me look twelve.”

They did not. Buck was six-foot-two-inches of muscle, with legs a mile long, and no amount of cherubic curls was going to disguise that. 

“You can’t tell me the girls don’t go crazy for them. Women love Christopher’s curls.”

Buck turned back around. “Eddie. Do _you_ want me to keep them?”

Eddie cleared his throat. The only correct answer was no. Because Buck has already expressed his opinion, and Eddie should respect that. And also because he didn’t have any standing to express a preference in how Buck styled his hair.

But he’d obviously hesitated too long.

“Why?” Buck asked, baffled. “I don’t even wear it like this. It’s not like you can even tell it’s curly, most of the time.”

Probably just when he woke up, or was fresh from the shower. Eddie’s seen both. Twenty-four hour shifts mean it happens occasionally. Buck keeps his hair short enough that it usually just means he looks a little disheveled, his hair sticking out in random directions, not long enough to curl, just long enough to be unruly. 

Utterly ridiculous to want them long just for those few moments. For what? Because Eddie liked the look of them?

Buck was looking at him, and Eddie realized he was taking way too long to answer.

“They’re cute,” he said gruffly. 

Buck looked surprised, then a flush crept up his face. Eddie watched in fascination as the birthmarks on his eye seemed to light up. 

“You think?”

“I’m being stupid. Let me just cut your hair.”

Buck ducked his head away from Eddie’s scissors. “No, no. I mean, if you think --”

“Buck, just let me --”

“Eddie.”

Eddie stopped trying to assault Buck with the scissors, feeling this had somehow all gotten away from him. 

“Just trim it,” Buck said.

“No, Buck, you don’t like it long, just let me give you your usual cut. I don’t know why I even said anything. It’s none of my business how you wear your hair.”

“Are you arguing with me, Diaz? If it’s my hair, let me wear it the way I want.”

“That’s what I’m _trying_ to do.”

Buck perked up. “Hey, if you leave it long, I can text Christopher a picture. We can be twins!”

Eddie can see it in his mind’s eye. The second Buck is allowed near Christopher again, the two of them, with the same shade of dirty blond curls and big grins. How right that picture looks to him.

And if Buck really doesn’t mind…

“Fine. Just a trim.”

+++

Eddie leaves Buck admiring his new short sides, and cleaned up, but still curly top, in his hair cut kit’s small mirror, to use Buck’s bathroom to shower. He’d skipped it after shift to come to Buck’s, and though Buck doesn’t seem to give it a second thought, there’s something intimate about using another man’s shower. He keeps it quick and efficient, the same way he might at the bunkhouse, or the gym, putting his clothes in a sealed bag for later washing, and washing thoroughly with the antibacterial soap he brought with him. 

Eddie doesn’t have to peek in a medicine cabinet, because Buck doesn’t have one, and living alone, simply leaves his stuff within easy reach on the sink. He has a shaving kit, his toothpaste, and a tube of hair gel that Eddie stares at for far too long. 

It’s a crazy impulse, that’s the only way he can justify it, but when he exited Buck’s apartment, the tube of hair gel was burning a hole in his gym bag.

Diaz, you dumb fuck.

+++

When Buck came in for his next shift, his curls were on full display, and Eddie pretended to be very invested in his cup of coffee.

“Whoa, there, Orphan Annie. Thought Eddie was going to take care of that for you,” Chimney said.

Hen gave Eddie a very knowing look that he pretended to ignore.

“He did,” Buck said, running his hand along his short sides. “Looks good, huh? I just ran out of hair gel, and it seemed stupid to go to the store for just one thing right now.”

Eddie sipped his coffee and watched Buck’s hair bounce as he made his way to the locker room, and carefully didn’t look in the direction of his own gym bag.

“Besides, I have an extra tube in my locker,” Buck said.

Eddie sighed in satisfaction. Not anymore he didn’t.


End file.
